I fear for Social Security.  I fear for unwarranted and special interest profits in making changes in a great compassionate societal program. I read the Wall Street Journal at times and find it obsessed with business personalities upon which (they imply) rests the soundness of our economy and government.

The push for privatization of social security funds for younger workers is all about “getting yours early and be first at the front of the line.” The appeal is to the profits gained by investing (gambling) in the Stock Market. The expectation is the yield for your “portfolio” will be greater than the “slow to start” and cautious investor. This appeal is to avariciousness and greed that I have discussed in earlier essays.  My colleagues in the “Management” (there was no “and Labor” in that rubric) department of Monmouth U. thought my ideas were extreme and that “Greed” was good and ordinary investment practices were only what God intended.

Paul Krugman in today’s NY Times questions the soundness of G.W. Bush’s plan to privatize, at least for the newest enrollees in a Social “Security” program by having them depend on the MARKET for security, soundness and proven delivery of wealth to the ordinary investor.  Mr. Krugman does not give all the history of investments but he surely remembers the “Bubble” of the past and the cycles of inflation and depression (we must call these by subtler and softer names today). CRASHES of the market and loss of monies hoarded for later life became realities of those trusting in the investment skills of counselors. These take fees to put your money in places where the sun does not often shine, hoping to escape the deluge when the monetary world goes crazy.

For some reason that only a few cognoscenti are privy to, having everyone who works pay into a program where the money is saved and backed by the name of the United States Government to be repaid at the time of retirement, it is the “Government” whose hands are on YOUR money that are resented and feared.  It would be so much better says the head of our present Government if you become the owner (in an OWNERSHIP society) of your own money, your own future and your own ship that will come in past the shoals of ups and downs in the market that has never hewed to a straight line of continual growth without major and minor disruptions along the way.

You could liken the record of the stock market ticker tape to the monitor of a patient’s heart.  The ups and downs are good - for the heart is beating.  When the straight line appears, the patient is dead. Some better way of checking the health of our savings must be found. Personally, I like SS just the way it was conceived three quarters of a century ago.